Chapter I: The countryside

Every summer, the countryside becomes a holiday spot for most Romanian kids who have their grandparents living there. Even if they like it or not, the countryside visit is a ‘must’. While some can hardly wait for that moment, others suddenly become obedient kids, who even promise of doing better in school next year, all in the hope of being spared of all the rural fuss.

I was part of the third group. The kid who stayed in the city, who didn’t have a countryside to go to. Both my grandparents were living in town and as a consequence I was often (over)romanticising about ‘the’ place which was outside of town and everyone went to. Somehow, I couldn’t understand why some of the kids deliberately wanted to skip their visit. Sometimes, the ones I used to play with, would even organise themselves in a small group, who’d try to find the golden excuse that would grant them the comfort zone of their home. But parent authority wins over child moaning most times if not every time. I suppose, the comfort part and the ‘had to’ part were the main reasons behind their unhappiness. Not everyone was a fan of rural lifestyle, where you’d also have to contribute in the household in a way or another. Tidying-up in and around the house, helping in the garden or taking the animals to graze in the open meadows, were not the most sought-after activities for your average teenager during summer holiday.

I was about 10 when I got my share of that rural experience I was only hearing about. My friend took me over to her grandparents’ house for a whole week, time in which I realised that my supposed romantic view was a close match to the reality: the palette of fresh colours, the clucking of chicken, the cows with their authentic smell of countryside, the vast areas of land, freshly picked veg and fruit, kind and hardworking grandparents and a bunch of really loud and friendly kids. I was sort of living my utopian dream when I was also assigned to take care of MY own cow, once they needed to go grazing in the open fields. We used to have to take them through a forest, walk along a river and once in the open fields, we had to make sure they wouldn’t end up eating people’s maize crops. It was overall an exciting place to be in and I was having a really good time (even when I got 2nd degree sunburns).

Since then, I knew I was definitely one of the kids who wouldn’t have mind going to the countryside during summer. Thus, I kept revisiting it every time I got the chance and every time someone would ask me to. One such occasion occurred last summer, when my good friend Alex took me to his incredibly beautiful rural area. The place is called Gușoianca.